Prevented from going north to Phonsavan at Vieng Thong.

[Moto-Rex]

Prevented from going north to Phonsavan at Vieng Thong.

My plan was to ride from Lak Xao to Phonsavan, so after a night in Las Lak Xao, I rode hwy 8 to the turn off, and started ending north. When I got to Vieng Thong the police/army? told me I couldn't go any further, indicating with hand signs that there was shooting further north.

One guy I meet in Thakhek said the vietnamese are logging in that area, and sending the timber to canada and they don't want people with motorbikes and cameras poking around. Another in Savannakhet said there has been fighting in there with some unhappy Hmong people who had been sent back from Thailand.

What ever the reason, I had to back.

The turn off on hwy 8.

 

[alrikki]

Do you mean south to phonsavan from vieng thong?I'm not sure where you mean.
We got stopped by the army before Phoxai, about 50km east of luang Prabang, on the way to Phonsavan about 2 weeks ago.They wouldnt let us through, wanted us to return to LP to get a permit, then said we should go with them into Phoxai to get a permit,then wanted 50000kip each to let us through, and wrote us out a note.
That road goes east, then south to route7 about 40km west of phonsavan
We werent the only ones to get stopped there that week either

 

[Moto-Rex]

Hi Alrikki.

The Vieng Thong Im talking about is around 60km North West of Lak Xao. Not the Vieng Thong North of Phonsavan.

 

[DavidFL]

alrikki;274388 wrote: Do you mean south to phonsavan from vieng thong?I'm not sure where you mean.
We got stopped by the army before Phoxai, about 50km east of luang Prabang, on the way to Phonsavan about 2 weeks ago.They wouldnt let us through, wanted us to return to LP to get a permit, then said we should go with them into Phoxai to get a permit,then wanted 50000kip each to let us through, and wrote us out a note.
That road goes east, then south to route7 about 40km west of phonsavan
We werent the only ones to get stopped there that week either

Sounds interesting. Any chance you could hit us with a trip report & some photos.

 

[Thanyaburi Mac]

his past May we did a 4-wheel trip up the southern portion of that road, north from the Moung Soui/Nong Tang area, #105 on the attachment, up to the small ferry boat crossing of the Nam Khan river, #104. On the way back I got Waypoint #103, which is/was a newly installed checkpoint.

On the way up the two Lao army guys at the checkpoint said, of course, "Where's your travel permission paperwork?" Oops, no have, so after a bit of BSing, they relented and let us on through. They said the permission paper should be gotten from the police in Phonsavanh.

Reckon it's the same deal coming in from the Luang Prabang direction, now need permission to go on through. No idea why, probably just another instance of "just because."

Picked off of Google Earth:

-- #103, 19-32.666 x 102-54.381, the junction north just a bit east of Nong Tang

-- #105, 19-41.300 x 102-51.767, the checkpoint

-- #104, 19-49.398 x 102-49.701, the ferry crossing at the Nam Khan, old LS-261

(Sorry, don't remember how to post a photo or clip from Google Earth showing relationship of these WPs, but they're south to north from Rt 7 to the Nam Khan)
Mac

 

[alrikki]

We went through that checkpoint, noone challenged us, but we were going the other way.
In april we had no problem at all on that road.
Next time I'll bypass both those checkpoints. was going to this time, in fact I missed the turn for the ferry and went several kms on east,but not knowing the state of the road we wanted to get to phonsavan before it got dark